When do you decorate?

You hear so much controversy over Christmas decorating. Should you wait till after Thanksgiving or should you do it as soon as Halloween is over. I for one have never decorated before Thanksgiving in my entire life. I guess because that is the way everybody in my family did. But I may stray from that tradition and put my tree and decorations up on the evening before Thanksgiving this year. simply because my family Thanksgiving is the weekend before and I will be the only one at my house for the holiday weekend. Not to mention I work a few hours on Thanksgiving day. I try to do what others do but this year, I'm going to do what makes me happy. We are coming into a busy season at work so I won't be home much. I want to enjoy every minute of my decor while I can. 

I think part of it is the excited in the kick-off transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas. I love getting up on Thanksgiving morning and looking at the Black Friday ads while eating some type of dessert I have made for Thanksgiving weekend. Usually it is me, my ads, a glass of milk and my no bake oatmeal cookies. I usually watch Miracle on 34th Street (the original) while I do a rough scan of the ads. Later that night I sit down with a piece of graham cracker pie and a Pepsi to make a list and plan my two day shopping trips for the Black Friday weekends. I never purchase the big ticket items that make people crazy and I absolutely refuse to shop on Thanksgiving day. It's my own personal tradition and I like it that way. Since I lost my hubby a week before Thanksgiving 3 years ago, I have hung on to some of our traditions but some I have changed because the holiday is just too hard if I try to keep some of them the same way. So I am decorating at a different time this year.

But right now I am looking at some of the vintage Christmas decor memories and checking out antique stores to see if I can find any on my wish list. I hated this aluminum trees but at the same time I loved the sparkle of them. I would love to find a small version even if it modern to put in the spare room and decorate it with beach Christmas theme to go with the beach room.

Mom had one of these and it went out every year. I would love to find one at a reasonable price. I found one last year locally for $85. Ummmm....NO. Maybe I can find one cheap this year.

Do you remember wearing Christmas corsages on your coat? We got new ones every year. 

I think I actually had one similar to this. I just love them. I would like to find one, not to wear, just to have. Maybe I could make some and start a revived trend. LOL.

Hopefully I find something new vintage this year. Last year, I was able to find me one of the small nativity scenes I was looking for. It was like this only no palm tree. I was so thrilled to find it in an antique store for just a few dollars.

I wanted a vintage Mr. & Mrs. Santa kissing S & P shakers. A friend found me a set similar to this one this past summer. Can't wait to set them out.

I love the old Shiny & Brite brand of ornaments. I have a set of over 30 of them that belonged to Hubby's grandmother. They are over 60 years old. I always hang them first on the tree.

A few years back a friend found me two of the little deer I wanted like these. I would like to find a couple of more of these.

I wanted this really bad and was able to find it one year as well. 

Everybody is Elf on the Shelf crazy. I have a vintage one that I have had for 41 years. He gets into mischief some. This isn't him because he's not "here" right now. But he looks like this one.

I collect Santa's and this is not my collection, but I see some vintage things in here I would love to find. I think Friday will involve some antiquing. 

Hope you have a great day!

The beauty around me....

I love this time of year in the Great Smoky Mountains. The trees and leaves have so many different beauties. I don't have a lot of trees around me that have changed completely but there are a few as you can see in this picture.

However from my daughter's front porch, you can see some beautiful colors.

A friend of mine works afternoons. So in the early morning when his Kid's head out to school and his wife heads out to work, he likes to hike in the Smokies. He posted this from one of his recent trips when he was hiking.

Then a couple of days later he went hiking up to Newfound Gap and Clingmans Dome and was able to see some of the first snow of the season.

As you can see, there is a lot of beauty in the area where I live.

Getting ready...

In my true fashion, I designed an Excel form to get organized for Thanksgiving. We do our family Thanksgiving the Saturday before Thanksgiving since I work 1/2 a day and the kids both do dinners with their in-laws. I'm not a big cook and don't like turkey so we have a pizza and dessert bar where we make our own pizzas on a choice of flat bread or sub rolls. Then I make everybody's favorite desserts. So I have to get organized because it is just a couple of weeks away. Then I fix myself a small dinner for Thanksgiving day. Ham, potato salad, deviled eggs and baked beans and something for my dessert for the weekend. It works great for all of us. I made me an Excel form in order to get myself organized and ready for the big day.

Remember when I showed you this that I thought was so cute. Well, I am going to make a modified version of it. I went shopping for fabric yesterday and just wasn't thrilled with the muted plaids I found at my local shops. I found absolutely nothing that matched this.

If you remember from my trees of Christmas past, I am a little old fashioned in my decor but love a twist of sparkly and bling. Christmas needs to have some glitter and shine for me.

So I picked some fabric for my craft project that has some sparkle in it. I'm going to work on it tomorrow. I have the grandkids and they may want to help out.

I'll keep you posted on the results. Have a great Monday.

Fall back....

I am normally a morning person. I get up between 5:30 and 6:30 every day for the most part. But today I am really dragging. I hate falling back on time as much as I hate springing forward. Yes, we gain an hour. Yes, I should get an extra hour sleep. In theory. But when your body only needs 4-6 hours sleep your whole life and you wake up at 5:30 and it is really 4:30 it is not good. And that doesn't even cover the fact that when I went to bed, I woke up about 4 times throughout the night because I was so worried I got it wrong and forgot to reset the clock right. Ugh. So here is some humor about falling back I wanted to share with you today.

Sharing some things today...

As we head into the month of Thanksgiving is when I usually start crafting for any Christmas crafts so they are ready when decorating time gets here. I have found some things that are amazingly simple to do. Going to head to Hobby Lobby, AC Moore or Joann's today or Monday to get supplies. This first one is going to be my first project. Talk about simple.

I want to do something like this on my entry table.

And I just love this. A little paint, a little fabric and you have a great new Christmas hanging.

I love this wreath. I want poinsettias for my flowers though.

Okay, I need to find this cup or get a white one and make it myself. Just too cute. I think Hobby Lobby has white ones but not sure if they are plain.

I fell in love with this manicure. I want to do one with pearly white nail polish and silver trim.

I have another friend having a birthday so I got up and made a Mississippi Mud cake for her before work this morning.

I have been up since 5:00 a.m. and have gotten a lot done. It's going to be just another regular, normal day at work so I need to head out soon.

Friday Foto Friends

 Just an update of my week in review with photos. It started on Monday where a dear friend celebrated his 32 birthday and for his "cake" he wanted my cinnamon roll french toast bake. I got up at 6:00 and made a pan of it for him and one pan for the office so I could be at work by 8:00 a.m. It was delicious.

On Tuesday, I used a lot of my Pyrex fixing 5 dozen brownie cookies and a chocolate cake with homemade icing along with a snack mix for a waitstaff Halloween party at work. 

When I was done, I noticed that my mixer of 30+ years has a frayed cord. It has been an amazing hand mixer and I am going to miss it when I replace it this week.

Just glad I got the chocolate cake made before I noticed it was about to go kaput.

All day on Monday & Tuesday I fluffed trees, wreaths and garland to help decorate the inside of Dolly Parton's Stampede. We were closed so I had a choice of the day off or to volunteer to decorate. Since I love to decorate that is what I chose. 

Since it was the last two days of October, I wore my Halloween shirt but got to spend some time with one of my friends who was working the booth for our Christmas show at the other show, Dolly Parton's Celebration.

We had a HUGE wreath that needed completed stripped down, fluffed and redecorated. I got to do that as well. This is the first time I have ever done a wreath this large. I was so pleased with the result. It will be a back drop for group photos if it is raining outside and they have to take them inside. 

Then after work Tuesday night, about 15 - 20 of us went to the Celebration show to watch it since it was open. They have Mason jar glasses that had to be a quart size because they were bigger than the pint ones. After two crazy, tiring, busy days of decorating I was ready to relax with an ice cold Coke and enjoy the show.

All of us that went are friends at work, but Mendi is one of my best friends. We think so much alike and have a blast every time we work together. 

My favorite part of the show was the Nativity scene. Especially while they sang Dolly's song "Once Upon a Christmas". If you haven't heard it, check it out on You Tube.

They had a big tree in the entry way and it was so pretty.

On Wednesday, I worked about 6 or 7 hours on my day off. Then my daughter and our friend Beth invited me to go with them to take their girls trick-or-treating. Shelby (right) is one of my granddaughters and Megan (left) is her best friend. Shelby was Jo Jo Swia of the famous Jo Jo hair bows that the younger girls wear.

They looked so cute. I didn't get to see my grandson Colby on Halloween but I just had to share his costume with you. My daughter-in-law Jamie is the Queen of Halloween costumes for her kids. Over the years, we have had mermaids, pirates, gorillas, you just never know what is up next. Well, Colby is our baseball star. He loves the sport and is an awesome player. So he got to be his own baseball card for Halloween...complete with his stats. I just love this. 

While out that night, I did get to see some cool decor in the neighborhood we visited. 

One house goes all out and has some unique, scary decor. Lots of skeletons in a makeshift graveyard.

Ghostly spirits in a room trying to get out. This one was a little spooky to watch them moving around in the shadows like zombies.

But the freakiest and most unexpected was spotting a dead alien on the side of the driveway.

Even a giant spooky eyeball peered out through the tall grass. 

Then it was back to work yesterday where we started the Christmas show for the 2018 season. But even though I have to work the next two months with Christmas decor, I am so excited that it is Thanksgiving this month. I love having the family over. Time to start planning my menu and see what desserts everyone wants. I may try to make graham cracker pie again. I messed up the meringue the last time I tried. Been afraid to try again. Maybe this will be the year.

Thank you Miss Debbie for letting me share my week on Friday Foto Friends.